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Iryna Solonenko has been an associate fellow at the DGAP’s Robert Bosch Center for Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia since May 2015. Since 2012 Solonenko has been working on a research project at the European University Viadrina, Frankfurt/Oder addressing state-business relations in hybrid regimes, focusing on the political role of Ukrainian oligarchs. Between 2000 and 2012 she worked with the Open Society Foundations in Ukraine as the director of the European Program and as a project manager for the EastWest Institute in Kiev.

Solonenko holds degrees in international relations, European studies, public administration, and history from the Central European University, Budapest; National Academy of Public Administration, Kiev; and National University Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Kiev. In 2006–07 she was a visiting research associate at the University of Birmingham, and in 2009 she was a fellow in the Study Program on European Security (SPES) at the Institute for European Policy in Berlin.

Her research interests include European Neighborhood Policy and the Eastern Partnership, political economy of post-Soviet transformation, including the nexus between the political power and oligarchic control, and civil society development.

Launched in 2015 after the Revolution of Dignity, Ukraine’s public administration reform is a serious attempt to overhaul the existing system based on recognized European principles. However, its implementation has been patchy due to various obstacles including poor leadership and resistance to change. To tackle these drawbacks, it is important to establish a reform task force led by the prime minster and improve legislation. Support from Germany and Europe will also be decisive for the reform’s success.

This April saw the formation of the third Ukrainian government since the Euromaidan protests. Where does Ukraine stand on its path to democratic change? Two years of reform efforts have yielded decidedly mixed results. A battle continues between the old system’s vested interests and reformers pushing hard for a new social contract. Who is winning? And how can external actors help the country, among other things, strengthen political accountability, break monopolies, and fight corruption?

After the manipulated elections to Ukraine's Verkhovna Rada in October 2012, Brussels' relations with Kiev are deadlocked. Ukraine is not fulfilling the signing conditions for the pre-initialed Association Agreement with the EU. Here an eight-point outline of further and alternative actions for the European Union.